Ignace Pleyel

Born 1757 in Ruppersthal in Lower Austria, died 1831; Ignace Pleyel, originally Ignaz Joseph Pleyel, joined a Europe-wide career as a composer to the development of a music publishing house and a piano factory. After training with Johann Baptist Wanhal and Joseph Haydn he served as Kapellmeister to Count Ladislaus Erdödy in Pressburg and made study journeys to Italy. In Strasbourg he became deputy Kapellmeister in 1783 and cathedral Kapellmeister in 1789; in 1791 he accepted an invitation to direct the Professional Concerts in London. In 1795 he moved to Paris, where in 1797 he opened a publishing house that issued, besides his own works, music by Haydn, Mozart, Beethoven and Boccherini. With the piano factory founded in 1807 he created a further lasting field of activity, which his son Camille later carried on.